Clara Endicott Sears

Clara Endicott Sears (December 16, 1863 – March 25, 1960) was an American author, preservationist, and philanthropist from Massachusetts. In 1914, she founded Fruitlands Museum, a history museum on the site of the short-lived utopian community, Fruitlands.

Biography Sears was born to a wealthy Yankee family in Boston in 1863. Her parents were Knyvet Winthrop Sears and Mary Crowninshield (Peabody) Sears. She was educated at private schools in Boston and by tutors in Europe. She authored several historical works as well as poetry, romantic works and popular songs for World War I.

In 1910 Sears purchased a summer estate in Harvard, Massachusetts, which included the farmhouse that was part of a failed Transcendentalist community known as the Fruitlands or consociate family. After restoring the house, and collecting numerous materials, Sears opened the building as the Fruitlands Museum in 1914.

Clara Seats transferred all her museum assets to Fruitlands and the Wayside Museums, Inc., in 1930. By this time the property included about 458 acres.

Also during the 1930s, she collected early 19th-century primitive portraits and built a gallery to display them in 1939. She continued to collect Hudson River School paintings and other American folk art for the museum.

Works

Prentice Mulford's Works (compiled) (1913) The Power Within, writings of various New Thought authors (compiled) (1911) Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands (Houghton Mifflin, 1915) Gleanings from Old Shaker Journals (Houghton Mifflin, 1916) The Bell-Ringer: an old-time village tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1918) Peace Anthem (1919) The Romance of Fiddler's green (Houghton Mifflin, 1922) Days of Delusions, a history of the Millerites (1924) Whispering Pines: A Romance on a New England Hillside (1930) The Great Powwow (1934) Wind from the Hills (1935) Some American Primitives (1941) Highlights Among the Hudson River Artists (1947) Snapshots from Old Registers (taken from the registers of 1880–1900 of the Hotel Vendome in Boston) (1955) Early Personal Reminiscences in the Old George Peabody Mansion in Salem (1956).